I want to not just create Dragons, but randomly other creatures. Perhaps from a hard coded list? I was thinking of using random numbers and case statements, but surely there's ruby-esque way to specify: types of creatures: AssistantViceTentacleAndOmbudsman.rb Dragon.rb IntrepidDecomposedCyclist.rb TeethDeer.rb and then (pseudo-) randomly select one to instantiate? Symbols seem promising but I'm not sure how to implement it. C:\code> C:\code> C:\code>type Driver.rb require 'ArrayOfCreatures' require 'Dragon' require 'Creature' #numOfCreatures=Kernel.rand(3) puts "\nquantity of creatures:" numOfCreatures = gets.chomp.to_i someCreatures = ArrayOfCreatures.new #need to ensure that this array can only hold Creatures 0.upto(numOfCreatures) do |i| someCreatures[i]=Dragon.new #all dragons? what about TeethDeer's? print "\n" print "someCreatures[" print i print "]:\n" print someCreatures[i].toString end C:\code> thanks, Thufir